In SPQR, Mary Beard sets herself a colossal task, starting with the foundation of Rome (dated by tradition to the 8th century BC) and concluding with the emperor Caracalla’s grant of Roman citizenship to all free inhabitants of the empire in AD212. In the course of this millennium, Rome grew from a village to dominate the largest and longest-lived empire western Eurasia has ever known. Sustaining the energy that such a topic demands for more than 600 pages, while providing a coherent answer to the question of why Rome expanded so spectacularly, is hugely ambitious. Beard succeeds triumphantly.

The phases of Roman history emerge with total clarity. It took 300 years for the village to become a substantial town of…

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